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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Happiness to be taught in schools

by

20131211

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has part­nered with US-based or­gan­i­sa­tion Project Hap­pi­ness to teach chil­dren to be hap­py.At a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh an­nounced plans to in­fuse "hap­pi­ness" in­to the cur­ricu­lum in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, us­ing the strate­gies de­vel­oped by Randy Taran, founder of Project Hap­pi­ness.The news con­fer­ence took place at the min­istry in St Clair.

Gopeesingh said Taran's team would as­sist his min­istry in widen­ing and deep­en­ing the emo­tion­al de­vel­op­ment of chil­dren in schools.Project Hap­pi­ness is a pro­gramme used by schools to teach hap­pi­ness and emo­tion­al re­silience to young peo­ple us­ing on­line re­sources, mul­ti­me­dia tech­niques and cur­ricu­lum work.Taran and her team will lead a two-day work­shop start­ing to­day with over 700 ed­u­ca­tors.

Gopeesingh said Taran's pro­gramme fell in line with the min­istry's ob­jec­tive to fo­cus on more than just aca­d­e­m­ic de­vel­op­ment.Taran told me­dia the idea of bring­ing Project Hap­pi­ness to T&T seemed ur­gent and time­ly, con­sid­er­ing re­cent news re­ports about vi­o­lence to­ward chil­dren.

"The is­sues be­ing seen in the news are not unique to T&T and are be­ing seen all over the world," said Taran. "The world is chang­ing. There is more stress and peo­ple need a dif­fer­ent set of skills in or­der to sur­vive. These skills need to be taught at a young age."Taran said these skills had to deal with peo­ple learn­ing to be emo­tion­al­ly re­silient and hap­py."Stress is a glob­al is­sue. The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion pre­dicts that by 2020 de­pres­sion will be the great­est cause of hu­man suf­fer­ing," Taran said.

She said Project Hap­pi­ness could help chil­dren cre­ate a life that would ben­e­fit not on­ly them­selves but their com­mu­ni­ties as well."Giv­ing chil­dren these tools at a young age will give them the foun­da­tion to thrive as adults.""How can a stu­dent con­cen­trate on their learn­ing if their minds are full of con­flict and stress?"Taran said in­tro­duc­ing the con­cept of Project Hap­pi­ness in oth­er coun­tries had im­proved the so­cial and aca­d­e­m­ic lives of chil­dren.

"We need to help our young chil­dren. We need to give them tools for a bet­ter life and we can­not wait. If we do noth­ing, things will de­te­ri­o­rate."


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